Comparing Hamlet And Twelfth Night

Although Hamlet is a tragedy and Twelfth Night is a comedy, many of the themes in these two stories are similar. Shakespeare’s writing allows two completely different stories to share similar themes and overall messages. Even if it isn’t clear at first, looking deeper into his writing, you can clearly identify some major similarities. First, the theme of disguises is very evident in both plays. In the play Twelfth Night, the characters physically wear disguises to fool the other characters. Viola disguises herself as Cesario who Olivia falls in love with. Feste and Malvolio also disguise themselves. In the end, the disguises don't really have an upsetting effect because in the end they're accepted for who they really are. In Hamlet, the disguise theme acts more under the theme of appearance instead of reality. Many of the characters in Hamlet appear to be friendly, but below the surface they are gloomy, unfair, and selfish. …show more content…
In Twelfth Night, many of the characters mention how they are in pain because of the love they have for somebody else, especially when the person they love doesn't love them back. At the end of the play however, some characters celebrate their love while others are still tortured by the deprivation of love in their lives. In Hamlet, Hamlet suffers because of the love between his mother and his uncle. He is also suffering because Ophelia rejects him at the beginning of the play to obey her father’s commands that she can’t marry Hamlet. Because of this, Hamlet tortures Ophelia by using her and treating her